The death toll continues to rise in Indonesia where more than 220,000 are now confirmed dead or missing, and 1,000 bodies a day are still being collected on the ground in the province of Aceh, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

It is the only country where the UN says the aid response is still in the initial emergency and recovery phase.

Secondary phase

The shift toward a secondary phase of reconstruction is beginning elsewhere.

Sri Lanka and India have recorded 550,000 and 140,000 homeless people respectively.

People who were already poor have lost the means to make a living

In the former, some 400,000 people are housed in temples and schools - meaning homes must be found before the semblance of a normal life can return for the majority.

Here and in Aceh province, tensions from decades-long conflicts must be held in check so the clean-up can progress.

In parts of southern India, the aid agency Oxfam says there is a "significant problem" in co-ordinating aid operations between a jumble of different agencies.

Thailand has struggled to identify its dead citizens and foreign tourists: only 700 Thai and 200 foreign victims are reported to have been identified by name out of more than 5,300 confirmed dead. A further 3,130 people remain missing.

No 'second wave'

But the UN says a swift international response has helped avert a "second wave of death".

Feared outbreaks of waterborne diseases among survivors in makeshift camps have not come to pass, the ICRC told the BBC News website.

The World Food Programme says it is now feeding 1.1 million people and the UN's children's agency, Unicef, has conducted wide-reaching vaccination campaigns.

The UN now says $5.3bn has been pledged by foreign governments in aid - though this can be disbursed as governments choose, and the UN has criticised nations in the past for failing to honour pledges.

Operators say they hope the effects on tourism will be short-lived

However, of a "flash appeal" for $977m (£522m) requested by the UN for immediate emergency operations, $775m has been received, the UN's Office for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told the BBC News website.

Contributions have also poured in from the public in nations around the world and the Paris Club of rich creditor nations has offered to freeze debt repayments by countries hit.

The tsunami's long-term impact on tourism, estimated to earn the region some $30bn a year, has yet to become clear but in its immediate aftermath hotel occupancy in the Maldives, for example, fell from 100% to between 20% and 40%.

In a region already suffering high rates of poverty, the tsunami's impact could serve to push another two million people into poverty, the Asian Development Bank cautions.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan says reconstruction will take decades.

Half a million Acehnese alone are at risk of developing long-term mental disorders including depression, the WHO cautions. For those who lost everything, the scars may never disappear.

You can watch a BBC News Special "Asia One Month On" on this website, BBC1 and BBC World at 1930GMT